The number of Russians and Creoles at the present time in the whole colony cannot be more than 2,500. The number of aborigines under the direct government of the Company may be 8,000. There remain also the mass of aborigines outside the jurisdiction of the Company, and having only a temporary or casual contact with it for purposes of trade. In this respect they are not unlike the aborigines of the United States while in their tribal condition, described so often as “Indians not taxed.” For the number of these outside aborigines I prefer to follow the authority of the recent work already quoted, “Les Peuples de la Russie,” according to which they are estimated at between forty and fifty thousand. _Secondly._ In speaking of _character_, I turn to a different class of materials. The early Russians here were not Pilgrims. They were mostly runaways, fleeing from justice. Langsdorff says, “The greater part of the Promüschleniks and inferior officers of the different settlements are Siberian criminals, malefactors, and adventurers of various kinds.”[70] The single and exclusive business of the Promüschleniks was the collection of furs. But the name very early acquired a bad odor. Here again we have the same Russian authority, who, after saying that the inhabitants of the distant islands are under the superintendence of a Promüschlenik, adds,--“which is, in other words, under that of a rascal, by whom they are oppressed, tormented, and plundered in every possible way.”[71] It must be remembered that this authentic portrait is not of our day. The aborigines are all, in common language, Esquimaux; but they differ essentially from the Esquimaux of Greenland, and they also differ among themselves. Though popularly known by this family name, they have as many divisions and subdivisions, with as many languages and idioms, as France once had. There are large groups, each with its own nationality and language; and there are smaller groups, each with its tribal idiom. In short, the great problem of Language is repeated here. Its forms seem to be infinite. Scientific inquiry traces many to a single root, but practically they are different. Here is that confusion of tongues which yields only to the presence of civilization; and it becomes more remarkable, as the idiom is often confined to so small a circle.